Committed to supporting the development of public policy education in Central Asia

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Committed to supporting the development of public policy education in Central Asia

18 Aug 2012

Dean and Dr. Katsu at the LTA signing ceremony at the LKY School with H.E Yerlan Baudarbek-Kozhatayev (far-left), Ambassador of Kazakhstan in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School), National University of Singapore signed a significant long-term partnership agreement with the Nazarbayev University (NU), Kazakhstan to support NU’s efforts to promote public policy education across Central Asia.

The partnership agreement signed is the result of LKY School’s outstanding track record in public policy education in Asia and beyond. Through the partnership agreement the LKY School will provide consultancy services over five years to 2017 to facilitate the establishment of an international Graduate School of Public Policy (GSPP) at NU.

The signing ceremony took place at the LKY School and the agreement was signed by Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, President of NUS, Dean Mahbubani and Dr. Shigeo Katsu, President of Nazarbayev University. His Excellency Yerlan Baudarbek-Kozhatayev, Ambassador of Kazakhstan in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand and faculty of the LKY School also attended the signing ceremony.

President Shigeo Katsu and Dean Kishore Mahbubani both said that they hoped that the agreement would contribute to the transformation of Kazakhstan’s public policy education in the next five years. Dr. Shigeo Katsu also noted that the initiative of establishing a world-class research-centreed university arose from President N. N. Nazarbayev’s vision. He reflected that the reason the The LKY School was chosen to be a central part of this initiative due to the School’s familiarity with Kazakhstan, and its experience in educating the next generation of policymakers under the Academy of Public Administration.

On 19 and 20 August 2012, NU and the LKY School celebrated the long-term partnership by hosting international partners of NU in Astana. The partnership celebration marked the cooperation and commitment of the two universities in working together to advance the public policy education in Kazakhstan and beyond. Dean Mahbubani, together with his fellow Vice-Deans Stavros Yiannouka and Professor Jeffrey Straussman, and Aigerim Bolat, Head of Central Asia Programmes at the LKY School were present for the occasion. Dean Mahbubani also met with the Deputy Prime Ministers of the country, Yerbol Orynbaev and Kairat Kelimbetov, to discuss the partnership plans.

During the visit to Astana, Professor Mahbubani also met with the Alumni of LKY School’s graduate and NU joint executive programmes, which included H.E Gulshara Abdykalykova, Minister of Social Security and Labour of Kazakhstan, over an Alumni lunch gathering.

The privilege of being part of the Kazakh Government’s historical initiative to set up the first research-centreed university to lead in Central Asia and beyond is the result of years of collaboration and trust gained by the LKY School in educating the next generation of leaders of Kazakhstan. Since 2008, the School has provided executive education programmes to more than 400 government officials including the Prime Minister and his cabinet.

In partnering NU, the LKY School joins a select group of leading international institutions including Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the University of Pennsylvania, University College London, Cambridge University, iCarnegie (the international arm of Carnegie-Mellon University) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison